The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment- Chapter 6

 



A few friends and I are reading this book together. Each week we are reading one chapter. On Fridays, I am posting my comments, then giving them the opportunity to add their thoughts as well. If you would like to join us or simply find out more about the book, you can read about it here.)

 

Chapter 6: The Will and Discernment

- This is a quote from later in the chapter, but I thought it was a good summary: "Discerning God's will . . . is the skill of understanding and applying God's Word with the purpose of separating right from wrong."  (Page 117)

 

- When he started talking about two kinds of will, I was not anticipating what was coming.  I was expecting the difference between His general will (for all) and His specific will (for an individual).  Definitely the author's Reformed Theology comes out strongly in this chapter.

 

- I think we all would disagree with it, but I want to be careful to say that I disagree with some of his explanation of God's "secret will."  He said, "It is the will through which God has decreed all that will happen." (Page 110)  About this: (1) I do believe that everything God says will happen will happen. (2) I do not believe God has decreed all that will happen- He knows all that will happen, but He has not decreed it to be.  If, by "decree," he just meant that God says what will happen, that would be one thing.  However, it seems clear that he is saying God decrees it and causes it to happen.  I do not believe tht is true about everything. (3) I find it interesting that throughout the book he has pointed us to God's Word, but after making this statement, he referenced the Westminster Shorter Catechism. (4) He did also quote Isaiah 46:9-11, part of which states, "I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning."  My perspective is that God know what the end is from the beginning and that He will bring that end to pass.  However, I do not think it implies that God has decreed every little thing from beginning to end. (5) I do not believe God's sovereignty is  limited by my explanation.  God is sovereign, but that does not mean that He makes everything happen that happens. (6) Saying that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world and saying that "He [God] does decree that evil will take place" (Page 111) are worlds apart in my mind. 

 

- After all that disagreement, I do agree with the thought that part of what God does or allows is off limits to our speculations.  I think we often try to figure that out when we should be working on living what is clearly revealed as His will in His Word.

 

- He lists three specific things that are definitely God's will- the more I look at them, the more humbling they are: 1) Be filled with the Spirit, 2) Be sanctified, 3) Be thankful.

 

- "Today it [God's will] is given to us in its full and final measure in the Bible the Word of God." (Page 113) Amen!!  I also like the following quote on the same page: "The life of discernment is, therefore, a Word-focused  and Word-directed life, which develops a Word-saturated mind."  May we all long for and work towards having a "Word-saturated" mind!

 

- He talks about the need for discernment especially in the areas where the Bible does not speak explicitly.  I agree wholeheartedly.  It seems to me that one of the problems with our modern-day Evangelicalism (broad view which includes us) is that so many come to these areas requiring discernment and use their own thinking or the thinking of another man instead of seeking out God's mind and applying truth from His Word to the situation.  (I feel like this has been said multiple times in the previous chapters, but I think we must keep this in mind that most people, yea, most believers are using this kind of reasoning.  We must confront them with the Scriptures and exhort them to search them out themselves.)

 

- His statement "when we are living in God's will, obeying his will as it has been revealed to us, there are no right and wrong decisions" was a little definite for me.  (Not saying I think it is definitely wrong, just made me cringe a little.)  However, the older I am the more I see there are certain decisions like this in life.  We knew God wanted us to come to Moldova.  We believe he would have us pick a missions agency to help us and our church.  We came down to two- we agreed with both in doctrine and philosophy.  We needed to make a decision.  We told the Lord just that and went with All Points.  We are very happy with our agency, but I cannot look back and say that to choose the other one would have been "wrong" or "against God's will."  Maybe the statement above seems too definite because so many would use this reasoning for things that are clearly outside of God's will based on the principles of His Word.

 

- I did appreciate his step-by-step approach to get to this discussion of God's will.  He first covered that truth and error are delineated in the Bible.  In this chapter, he is showing that and understanding and application of that truth to the situations in our lives helps us to see what God's will is.

 

- I'm glad that he pointed out that while everything is not mentioned directly by the Bible, everything does tie into God's plan for His people, and therefore is dealt with in Scripture.

 

- Despite reservations from elsewhere in the chapter, I really appreciated something he said near the end: "Our spontaneous thoughts and actions are a sure measure of our spiritual growth, our spiritual maturity, and our spiritual discernment."  (Page 120)  When I look at my spontaneous thoughts especially, I see that there is much room for growth.  I don't believe the Lord would have us continually beat ourselves up over those flaws, but simply use them as a reminder of His great grace in our lives and as teachable moments to grow in Him.

 

I've had my say, what say you?

 

Discussion on Chapter 5

Discussion on Chapter 7

The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment- Chapter 5

 

(A few friends and I are reading this book together. Each week we are reading one chapter. On Fridays, I am posting my comments, then giving them the opportunity to add their thoughts as well. If you would like to join us or simply find out more about the book, you can read about it here.)

Chapter 5: Truth and Discernment

- The author said, "In this chapter we will examine the existence of truth and show that discernment can only exist where truth is affirmed."  (Page 92)  I thought it was a good summary.  Here are my thoughts:

 

- He pointed out that for a counterfeit to exist there must be something real that exists.  A few years back I heard a preacher point out that people will use hypocritical Christians as a reason they don't live for God.  He noted that the presence of hypocrites means that there is the real thing.  This has stuck with me and helped me.

 

- I had not thought much about the relationship between absolute truth and discernment.  He pointed out that the practice of discernment is founded on the notion that there is absolute truth and that there is error.  Before a person can discern, he must acknowledge that those two exist.  To me, it seems that many people cannot bring themselves to say that something is wrong because they do not believe there is a standard- there is absolute truth.  Thanks to the author, I now see that relationship.

 

- I think his "while God is truth, truth does not equal God" (Page 94) is important for our day.  I'm sure other words could be substituted, but I think many need to see the word "love" in this equation.  People put too much of an emphasis on "love," then equate love with God, and in the end I think they distort the character of God, because it is based on their derived view of Him based on their understanding of love.

 

- As preachers, we must echo his bold proclamation that "we know the Bible is true because it is the revelation of God, who is true and who is unable to lie." (Page 95)  I appreciate his confidence in the Word of God!

 

- He mentioned the book The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer.  It is a powerful book- one that I plan to read once a year for the rest of my days.  If you have not read it, I would encourage you to do so!  (It is only $2.99 on Amazon.  If you want, that can be my Christmas present to you!)

 

- I think he mentioned it in earlier chapters, but he brought out the fact that the first area in which we need to exercise discernment is our thoughts of God.  We cannot conduct our lives properly if we do not believe properly.

 

- He equated worldliness (worldly thinking) as the direct opposite of correct thinking about God.  I had not thought of them in that way before, but I think it is accurate.  He showed that thinking rightly about God will lead us to Jesus Christ and thinking wrongly about God will always lead us to ourselves.  I would say it leads us to ourselves or to the words of another man- still, we are either looking to God's Word or man's.

 

- We probably all have heard the statement that we best know what is wrong by first knowing what is right.  He later said, "The relationship of truth to error is such that we can best know error by knowing truth.  The opposite is not true."  (Page 101)  Again, he is right on- studying error may turn up some truth here and there, but it will not establish what is truth and what is error.  However, studying truth will establish what it is, and, by extension, what error is.

 

- The better we know the truth, the more easily we will recognize error.

 

- "Error may be subtle, but it is always deadly."  (Page 103)  I know that in my mind, I see some errors as dangerous and others as not so bad.  This sentence helped me remember that all is, as he said, deadly!

 

- The Hensel twins are easy to find on the internet if you are interested in reading more.

 

- He said that areas are gray because of the Fall.  I am reminded of what my brother-in-law Paul J. says (probably not original with him, but I'll give him the credit for it), "Sin always complicates things."  When a person follows God's design, it is easier to make a decision in a situation.  The more entrapped in sin one becomes, the more difficult it is to see how to extricate from those situations.

 

- I think he is correct in saying that we often start from the obscure and work back to what is clear instead of the other way around.  However, after a little bit of thinking, I could not think of a good example when we do this.  Can you guys?

 

- I appreciated his emphasis on the conscience while showing its subservience to and dependence on Scripture.

 

- Again in this chapter, he mentioned that discernment is making "binary distinctions."  I don't know much about computers, but I know they are based on the processing of a series of 1s and 0s.  He is pointing out that discernment is seeing there are two options- one is right and one is wrong.  He very much narrows things down, but I very much appreciate it.

 

- Congratulations!  We are halfway through the book!!

 

- Sorry about the limit for comments that messed a couple of you up last week.  I'll see if I can change that.

 

I've had my say, what say you?

Discussion on Chapter 4

Discussion on Chapter 6

The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment- Chapter 4

(A few friends and I are reading this book together. Each week we are reading one chapter. On Fridays, I am posting my comments, then giving them the opportunity to add their thoughts as well. If you would like to join us or simply find out more about the book, you can read about it here.)

 

Chapter 4
In this chapter, the author discusses how discernment touches judging.  He explained what we are not to judge and what we are to judge.  He explained what it means to "prove all things" and gave examples of areas we must prove.  Here are some things that stood out to me:

- "We live in a culture that values autonomy to the point of irrationality."  He pegged it!

- He pointed out that if God is the author of the Bible, and if God only speaks truth, then the Bible never truly contradicts itself.  Just because I may not be able to understand something does not make it a contradiction.

- "We may judge doctrine and behavior by the objective standards of right and wrong that are given to us in Scripture."  I think most people would agree with this statement.  However, because people interpret things different and apply principles differently, it can be frustrating.  For instance, there are plenty of principles I would use to come to the conclusion that going to a PG-13 movie (just picking a rating) would be wrong.  However, I know many believers who would not see it as a problem.  We both would say we can judge by what the Bible says.  I would say Bible principles forbid it.  They would say the Bible does not condemn it.  My point: I agree with his statement, but people will often only listen if it is explicitly stated in Scripture, and will not if it is a principle applied to a situation/decision.  Do you guys agree?

- Maybe another way to say what I was trying to express above is this: there are things that, if we apply principles, we see as clearly wrong.  However, others think they are simply matters of "Conscience" (the 2nd area he gave in which we aren't supposed to judge) and get upset if we speak against those things- again because we have applied clear principles to things not specifically stated in Scripture.

- I liked his illustration of an individual's responsibility once they have accepted a counterfeit bill and once they have accepted false doctrine.  

- The idea of testing things resonated with me.  In my short life, I have come to really dislike when a preacher will blast something but will not give his Biblical reasoning.  When they do that, I am left only with man's opinion as to why it is wrong.  I want to know why an idea/person does not line up with Scripture.  If we just immediately reject an idea and don't test it by Scripture, we are asking others to follow our opinion.  If I test it long enough to see where it deviates from Scripture, then I can give others a Scriptural reason to avoid it.

- He said that it is the right and responsibility of both churches and individuals to test all things.  I would submit that a church will test things to the extent the members of the church are testing things individually. 

- "To some extent, everything relates to life and faith!"  Amen!

- I appreciated his illustration with his son, showing that we are to test everything, but not necessarily try everything once.  However it did make me wonder: How can I accurately test things?  To be able to test it, I need information about it.  How do I go about getting that information?  For instance, I have never been to a movie theater.  If I am going to preach against going to a movie theater, how can I gather accurate information about it in order to compare it to God's Word?  I do not want to preach against something just because someone else has preached against it.  I think in areas like this we can be creative in our information gathering (visit the theater and ask manager questions, as an example).  We can test without trying.  Any other thoughts/suggestions on how to information gather without trying?

- [Another Lord of the Rings reference will always bring a smile to my face!]

- [Personal pet peeve: the people commended for their searching the Scriptures in Acts 17:11 were not Christians. They were unbelieving Jews. If you don't believe me, check it out. Verse 12 says that they believed. Maybe it is just me, but I think belief comes before salvation.  I know they are still commended as "more noble" for searching the Scriptures, and we can still apply the passage to others who search (whether believers or unbelievers).  It doesn't make a ton of difference, but since I have noticed this, it bothers me when people explain it incorrectly.  It is like after you learn there is an arrow in the Fed-Ex logo, you always see it after that.] - He said we are to test leaders.  It got me thinking: Paul told Titus that he was to ordain elders that had the qualities that Paul then laid out.  They were not only to live up to that standard, but also to be meeting it already.  If that is the case, are these qualities just for preachers, or are they truly for every man in a church?  I would say they are for every man. - He gave Al Mohler's three levels of issues.  Many evangelicals would say that we should just focus on the Gospel and not bring up the "third-level" issues.  I would slightly change that.  I think we should bring those up, but too often we become so consumed with the "third-level" issues that we completely ignore the "first-level" issues.  That is when I think we are out of balance.
 
I've had my say, what say you?

Discussion on Chapter 3
Discussion on Chapter 5